Tuesday 1st November 2011
I’ve spent some long days at tournaments over the past 12 years including a 19 hour day on site at a Tennis Europe event in Gothenburg watching a player finish his match at 1.30am but I’ve never left the hotel as early as 5.55am . . . until today!
We had a rather quiet walk down to the tennis centre this morning as I think Mia was still fast asleep but by 6.20am we were warming up in the car park and by 6.45am the doors were open and we were straight on court. We knew it would be difficult to get practise courts today as all of the main draw players had signed up but we managed to jump from court to court and find spaces so we could get some training done. By 9am when then matches started we were both rather pleased that we’d managed to train for an hour and 45 minutes including an hour with the other main draw players. In the break we had from 8 – 8.30 Mia signed in as a “Lucky Loser” expecting to still be 4th on the list but the 3 players above her had not bothered to sign in so if anyone pulled out she’d be 1st in.
As soon as the first round matches went on we were able to go back to the hotel for some breakfast but as the bus wasn’t there Mia decided we should run back . . . well, that’s not 100% true – she decided we should leave our bags at the tennis centre so I said we might as well run back!! After getting used to the cold mountain air we made it back in about 10 minutes and then had a good breakfast at the hotel. It was then straight back to the club (got the bus this time!) to sign in for doubles and play the waiting game to see if any players pulled out of singles.
No one pulled out today but the Mia and Costanza took to the court at around 5pm to play their first round doubles match against the Swiss pair of Sara Orellana and Natacha Petrovic. Mia and Costanza started well playing some solid doubles and at 2-2 after 3 sudden death deuces the set could have gone either way. Unfortunately Costanza’s serve was not on today and following 3 double faults in her opening service game she hit another 2 at 2-2 and got broken easily. She was also broken at 3-5 to lose the set 6-3. Out of the 9 games in the first set 6 of them went to sudden death deuce with the Swiss pair taking 4 out of the 6 games – the sudden death deuce is a huge part of doubles now and you’ve really got to be switched on or you can find your self a long way behind after having close games.
The serving level from Costanza and Mia didn’t improve in the second set and far too many points were given away cheaply. Mia was broken at 0-1 and then Costanza was broken at 0-3 – all three games at the start of the second set went to sudden death deuce with our girls losing all 3!! After breaking at 0-4 Mia held but despite breaking again to make the score 3-4 the Swiss pair upped their level and took the next two games to win the match 6-3, 6-3.
Total games played: 18
Total games lost: 12
No. of deuce games played: 10
No. of deuce games lost: 7!
Overall I think the Swiss girls were just a little stronger all round today but you never know how a pair will react until you get on level terms with them and see how they deal with a bit of pressure.
Overall this week hasn’t been as good as the two weeks in Vietnam or the week in Bath at the LTA event but there have still been a huge amount of learning points and a trip is always beneficial if you come away from it as a more experienced and better player which I believe Mia has this week.
Tomorrow we’ll sign in for a Lucky Loser again as they split the draw today but unless anyone has a bad reaction to the meal that the Club laid on tonight then I think we’ll be travelling home in the evening.
